ON DEATH GROUND

The Art of Fighting 3x Harder 

Levi Clampitt

 

Estimated reading time: 33 minutes

Preface

“Someday you will die, and until you know that, you’re useless to me.”
― Chuck Palahniuk

 

You could be dead tomorrow. Unexpected events, like suffering a heart attack while doing squats or getting sideswiped by a car on your way to work, happen to people all the time. Rationally, you know this but it’s still hard for your mind to truly grasp. Instead, you tell yourself that this isn’t likely to happen to you because you’re in good health and that you’re smarter than the rest. The reality is, you’re not. 

When it comes to thinking about our own mortality, we’re just as entitled and delusional as the rest. Entitled enough to believe that we’ll have the same health and other resources at our hand in the future to accomplish whatever we’re putting off (let alone expecting the state of the world to remain the same) and delusional enough to think the types of things that kill, hurt, and ruin others won’t do the same to us and our loved ones.  They will.

Life expectancy be damned, the likelihood that you or someone very close dies within the next decade or even the coming years is probably higher than you realize. Coming to terms with this (and fully absorbing it), doesn’t have to be all bad feelings and alternatively, can be used to your benefit. Death, especially when it’s close, has a way of imparting clarity and purpose on one’s life that is hard to get from anywhere else.  You have no choice but to become introspective after you survive cancer or after the loss of a loved one. What do you do next? How do you live your life? Where do you go from here? Life will have a different meaning now. 

Thinking about death, like we are now, is important. Doing so creates a powerful connection to the present that can help with feelings of being lost, getting our priorities straight, and creating a sense of urgency to get shit done. It can also be a source of despair and depression, depending on one’s perspective and experiences. I want to talk about how we can use it positively. Society has taught us to be afraid of sickness and death and to keep it “out of sight, out of mind”, but all this has done is lead to procrastination and regret. If you don’t think people will get sick and die, then you won’t act like it either – until it’s too late. Let’s change that.

Maybe you disagree with this premise, or maybe you are indifferent. Maybe you are more concerned about landing a better job or finally seeing your abs, and don’t see how this all fits in. Stay with me. How you think about death is also how you think about life (and all the things you want to get done). Luckily, we have a strategy for that. 

The Death Ground Strategy

“Throw your soldiers into positions whence there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight. If they will face death, there is nothing they may not achieve.”

― Sun Tzu

 

According to Sun Tzu in The Art of War, if soldiers were put into positions where there is no escape route (such as with their back against a mountain, river, or ocean), they would fight to the death and achieve great feats. Tzu referred to this inability to retreat as “Death Ground”.  By removing the possibility of quitting, the soldiers had no choice but to give it their all and in fact, Tzu found they fought 3x harder.  As Robert Greene discusses in The 33 Strategies of War, Hernán Cortez used this tactic when he burned all his ships so his men could no longer think about the prospect of going home, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky used it to write all his books after narrowly avoiding a firing squad. When the allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, they found themselves on Death Ground, as did the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae as they fought with their back against the pass. No retreating in either case, just fighting until the bloody end. When you have stage 4 prostate cancer, nature has placed you on Death Ground, and when you are sleeping on the floor of your business because you sold your home to pay off debt, you have placed yourself on Death Ground. In such situations, there is no guaranteed “tomorrow”, no “maybes”, and no “plan B’s”. Just today, just right now, just the course of action you have chosen or that has been thrust upon you. You cannot afford to fail as failure means certain death, either in the real sense of the word or in other forms.   

While the Death Ground Strategy is straightforward in theory – throw yourself fully into something, whether it’s your career, relationships, or life in general, without an exit strategy – I believe there’s room for us to expand on it and create something more practical. Although the idea of risking it all might be appealing to some, it’s not always a guaranteed or sustainable approach for most aspects of life (as survivorship bias causes us to overlook failures in favor of success stories). Just like we no longer need to move to Hollywood if we want to become an actor, we don’t need to quit our current job to pursue side hustles or follow a crazy diet to see results.  We all have enough time and resources at our disposal, we just need to learn how to maximize it all.  If we can learn how to use the concept of death to mentally put ourselves on Death Ground, we can then reap the rewards of “fighting 3x harder”. That is what this is for.

After having three friends pass away recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about this. What follows is how I put myself on Death Ground. While I’m certainly not an expert on this, it will no doubt sound overly confident and preachy in places (because that’s what I need). Whether you agree or disagree, I hope it is able to provide you some food for thought and maybe, just maybe, help you do the things you told yourself you would do by now. 

Alas, here are the 5 steps of putting yourself on Death Ground. 

1

Remember, You Must Die

“Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing.”
― Seneca

 

Maybe not today and perhaps not tomorrow either, but you will die. Why is it so easy to forget this?

If we put all our collective lives under a microscope, one would think we are going to live forever. We tend to put off the most important things, binge on stuff that isn’t, and then complain that we have no time. Perhaps we forget our own mortality because we get swept up in the day-to-day chaos of bills, work, and to-do lists, or maybe society, with its focus on 401ks and retirement plans, has conditioned us to look so far into the future that we lose sight of the present. Whatever the reason, it’s typically only when people close to us die that we are reminded of how fleeting life can be. We then attend the funeral and you hear people (including yourself) saying how they wish they would have reached out or visited before they died and how we are now going to dedicate something or the other to their life. And then time marches forward, life gets busy again, and this feeling slowly fades.

So how do we live by what the ancient Stoics called Memento Mori and keep this feeling alive? 

Surround yourself with the memories of the dead

There are several famous quotes that emphasize that people don’t truly die until the memories of them fade away. I think there is some truth to that.  Our time here is short but it can be made long if you can make an impact on people. To allow an impact to be made on yourself, frame up the photos of your fallen friends and family members and keep them close by. I have a newspaper clipping from one of my friend’s deaths next to my clothes’ closet. Every day, I look at it while getting ready for work, and every day I not only think about how easily this could all be over, but I think about the gifts they brought into this world — and that’s inspirational to me.

Live vicariously through those that have experienced loss and hard times

For this, I suggest reading. Reading can help us gain perspective and learn from others’ experiences in such a depth that is often not possible through conversations in everyday life. I recommend starting with Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl or The Choice by Edith Eger, both of which chronicles their time in a Nazi concentration camp, and The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday, which offers practical advice on how to navigate difficult times and introduces readers to Stoicism. I find that these books are essential for everyone, but if you want more recommendations, see the list at the end of this website.

Listen to the elderly talk about their life and regrets

Something you won’t hear the elderly talk about is how they wished they worked harder to afford that fancy car or how they regret not holding their grudges longer. Instead, they will talk about the importance of making time for others, learning how to say yes to life, and not sweating the small stuff (and it’s all small stuff). By listening to them, we can tap into their wisdom and help us navigate all this bullshit.

The goal of all these activities is to slow down and reflect on how we are living our lives. Some people use tattoos to remind themselves of their mortality, while others will listen to podcasts about loss and grief. Find something that resonates with you and helps brings you back to the present moment because once you get there, we’ll have some work to do.  

2

Clarify Your Purpose

“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”
― Victor Frankl

 

What are you living for?

Since we all end up 6 feet under eventually anyways, I think it’s a fair question to ask why you do the things you do. Failure to think about who you are and what you are doing here may not be too catastrophic but it will likely lead to lack of ambition, feelings of regret, and aimlessness as well as set you up to do a lot of stuff you don’t really want to do. 

As a thought experiment, let’s imagine for a moment that you have unlimited resources, both time and money. What activities would you now choose to devote your life to? Apart from the much-needed vacation and purchasing some fun stuff, how would your life be different? Removing these practical constraints can help us determine what truly matters to us. While some people may have a definitive answer, many of us like myself may find our purpose to be blurry and less concrete. To better understand what you are fighting for, here are three questions that I reflect on whenever I get too caught up in the chaos of life. Although these may not provide a final solution for defining your purpose, hopefully they may serve as a good starting point.

What are your Values?

You probably already have a set of ideals that you live by (that may or may not be easily definable), but for reference, some examples of mine include “Ownership”, “Freedom”, “Community”, and “Resilience”, among others.  We can refer to these our “non-negotiables”, and I like to think of them as the foundation for helping make difficult decisions. In times of tough and when shit hits the fan, we fall back on these values to help find our way through. Without this foundation, we may make choices we regret during moments of crisis. My advice is to not leave it up to chance and to figure these out before you find yourself on Death Ground. This is your backbone. 

Sometimes we also need reminders of who we are or who we are becoming, and that is why we need to consciously think on this.  If you’re struggling to identify your values, consider the people you admire and the qualities they possess. Take the best parts of them and make them your own. Many of “my” values listed above were lifted from the book, The Talent War, after I realized that’s the person I want to become. 

It’s also worth noting that integrity is a value that we cannot afford to sacrifice. If you are unable to “practice what you preach” and you cannot motivate yourself to do what you told yourself you would do and what you know is right, then the whole house will fall. It’s become trendy in today’s politically charged environment to appear a certain way (both politicians and the people that vote for them) but lest we forget, it is actions that matter not words and symbolic gestures. How do we treat ourselves and others? And what are we doing to better our community? This is what matters. Without integrity and follow-through, your beliefs are just fluff. If you want to make a positive impact, get out there and actively work towards doing it.

What are your Principles?

How do you translate your values into actionable behaviors? For example, being more capable is a great goal, but what specific actions can you take to bring this value to life? Creating a list of principles that reflect your values can be helpful in this process. For reference, here are the 15 principles that I have created for myself.  From that list, you can probably see how they relate back to my values, goals, and even Death Ground in general. While they are not as clever as say, Jordan’s Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, they are easy to understand and work for me.

In addition, there may be times when we’ll need to create specific rules to address areas where we are struggling. For example, some rules that I have set for myself in the past that have produced huge dividends include: not drinking at home, not talking politics at work, bed by 10pm, and being very extreme in limiting screen and technology use. Little good happens if I violate these.

Whether you want to call these your Principles or Rules or Guidelines or whatever, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you keep them visible. Life is chaotic and the chaos will make you forget what you are trying to achieve. 

What is your Legacy?

Thinking about your legacy can also be a helpful exercise in clarifying your purpose and goals. What do you want to be known for, both while you are alive and after you pass away? What impact do you want to have on the world? Start with the impact you want to have on your immediate surroundings, such as your friends, family, and community, and then build out from there. You probably won’t have a crystal clear vision of what this looks like, but you’ll have something. Keep working on it. If it helps, attend your future funeral in your mind. What are people saying (or not saying)? You still have time to write those stories.

Life is often full of distractions which can make it difficult to pinpoint our true purpose. Death has a way of cutting through these distractions, but we don’t need to wait for a crisis to happen before we can make meaningful changes. Nor do we need to leave this up to chance by relying on today’s cultural programming to shape us. Decide for yourself who you want to become and what you want to accomplish. 

If you are still struggling to find meaning or purpose, it may be because you just need to experience more and get out of your comfort zone. Let’s explore.

3

Commit to Action

“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.”
― Marcus Aurelius

 

 

What have you been putting off?

Big or small, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you told yourself you were going to do it and by not doing it, you have weakened yourself.  You have violated your own integrity. Maybe it’s a trip to see friends, maybe it’s a career venture, maybe it’s something simple but you’ve procrastinated on it for so long that it feels like a huge undertaking (like going to the gym). It sounds so cliché, but just do it. Purchase the flights, buy the gym pass, and commit to action. You told yourself that this thing would be better off being done in the future (when conditions were ideal) but if Covid taught us anything it is that the future is not guaranteed.  Do it now (or at least soon), it’s not that big of deal.

If a doctor were to tell you that you only had a certain amount of time to live, you’d probably be acting differently than you are now. Try to harness that. What would you stop procrastinating on? What bucket list item would you cross off? Who would you forgive and finally make amends with?

If you are stuck, here are some things to think about.

On Forgiveness

You’ve no doubt been hurt as well as hurt others. We all have. Like most people, you are probably still holding on to some of that negative energy and this may be preventing you from taking action where you need to.  This goes against our nature, but try to forgive those that have done you harm. Holding grudges doesn’t hurt anyone but the grudge holder. Stop letting people live in your head rent-free taking up vital resources and instead, let the karmic justice of the universe sort it out (everything comes back around anyways). If you are the “bad guy” in this situation, reach out and try to make it right. Feeling bad because of how you treated someone will eat at you if you are normal human being. Make amends. If they still tell you to fuck off, well hey, at least you tried. It’s either you do it now or wait until one of you are on your death bed. 

Inversely, learn how to forgive yourself for your past mistakes.  You’ve no doubt had some real doozies in your life, but this is all part of the process. To paraphrase a Chuck Palahniuk quote, we are all rocks in a tumbler getting polished up nice and bright by the pain of life. The important thing is not to ever commit mistakes or to fail, but to learn from them and to use these important lessons to better your life.

On Making Better Decisions

The goal isn’t to be mistake-free, but rather to not make the same mistake over and over again.  So how do we do this while preventing the dreaded “analysis paralysis”?

Tips:

  1. Practice making faster decisions. Luckily, most decisions have room for error built in so that you can go back after the fact and rectify them if need be. This true for most purchases (with their easy refund terms), work decisions, and life in general (because none of it really matters as much as you think it does). Just like money in hand is worth more than a little bit more at a later date, a poor decision made quickly is almost always better than a good decision made much later. Having values and principles to fall back on here will also make this easier.  
 
  1. Lower your expectations. If you are thinking that taking a certain career opportunity or trip is going to be “life changing”, then you are probably setting yourself up for disappointment. With any large decision there is going to be lots of uncertainty and no matter how much planning you do, you are sure to “get punched in the mouth” as Mike Tyson eloquently put it. Because of your expectation, though, you are likely going to emphasize making a perfect decision, which can cause to you to over-research, delay action, and maybe defer it altogether. Just do it, it’s not that big of deal.
 
  1. Take ownership of the results. It’s convenient and comforts our ego when we can blame our mistakes on others, but more often than not this prevents us from actually learning from them. Even when we defer our decisions to others, we need to take ownership of those results. If you keep getting burned by people, that’s on you. Pick up Robert Greene’s Laws of Human Nature and learn how to prevent that. If you don’t like the direction that your department is going, read Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends and Influence People to find out how to get your co-workers and higher-ups on your side. If you keep getting passed over in interviews or promotions, realize that it’s probably because of something you are doing (not them) and thus, the onus is on you to correct it. You have the power.
 

On Acting As If

Maybe you just don’t feel prepared enough to move forward or maybe you’re ready, you just need someone to give you a chance. In both circumstances, you need to act as if. As in, act as if you’ve already been offered the role of Batman. You have one year to prepare, how would you do it? You’ve landed that book deal, what do you need to research before your writing begins? You’ve been promoted to Manager, what are the first things you enact as the boss? Don’t wait until the opportunity arrives, make it happen. It’s yours for the taking. If you are not ready, then this is how you prepare yourself and if you are ready, then this is how you prove it. Don’t wait any longer.

Along with all this, you’ll probably need to learn how to talk to stop talking your way out of things and learn how to talk your way into them. Pinpoint your fears and tell them to fuck off. Or conversely, give them a hug.  By a committing to a life of action, you’ll need to try a bunch of different strategies and techniques for going to war with yourself.  And realize, you may not succeed at this one thing you are going so hard at but that’s just part of the grand plan. That failure then becomes a building block for the next thing. 

In short, you’ll need to take chances if you want a real shot at living. To truly live, however, we’ll need to kill that thing in our heads telling us not to do it.

4

Kill the Ego

“In the end though, everybody dies, but not everybody lives—the climber, though he may die young, will have lived.”

― Mark Lawrence

 

How well do you know yourself?

You may think you know yourself quite well, but the reality is that you likely have yet to discover who you are. And the truth may be that you never truly will. Most of what makes you “you” – your likes, beliefs, personality, etc. – has just sort of been given to you and hasn’t really been “field tested” yet. We are molded by experiences but our experiences are limited (no matter how much we do). Because of this, we are terrible predictors of what will actually make us happy as well as blissfully unaware of how different we could have ended up.

Imagine for a moment how different you would be if you were raised in another part of the world or with a different set of parents. What epiphanies would you have if you had travelled to Africa or Japan when you were younger, and how would those may have dramatically shifted your life?  How much more confident would you be if you were assigned a math tutor in grade school or learned martial arts in your teens? Consider how much your political views would have shifted if you chose being a boilermaker over accounting as a career, or how your life would be radically altered if you removed some of your most critical moments. This is to say nothing about all the weird stuff below the surface of our conscious mind that we are not aware of until we are.  I had no idea this was the direction I was going to take on this chapter until it all just spilled out on the page. It was inside me but I was oblivious. What else is inside?

We can’t know everything, especially about ourselves, and that’s okay. What’s important is remaining open to experience so we can continue to learn and grow as a person. We all have hidden talents, interests, and potential waiting to be uncovered. The problem lies when we take the limited amount of stuff we think we do know (that make up our beliefs, identities, and fears) and take them too serious, to the point where it prevents us from discovering these new possibilities.  This is the part we need to kill.

No one is saying that you cannot have strong beliefs (strong actions are better) but if they are holding you back, let’s try something different. Break free from your passions and labels, and practice not being yourself for a while. You have conditioned yourself to see things a certain way, but to see things how they truly are you may need to get out of the box that you have built for yourself. Here’s how. 

Do the things you suck at

First off, try new things. Outside of some rare talent you might discover, you’ll likely suck hard at anything you try. That’s okay.  As one of my co-workers likes to say, “it builds character”. This is the point. We need to learn how to suck at things gracefully. Some people don’t know how to lose and it shows as they forbid themselves for trying anything where they may look less than favorable. Shed your perfectionism and this idea that you should only do things that you are naturally inclined for, and instead, practice working on your weaknesses and limitations. Act before you are ready here and get used to peeing your pants in public (no one is really watching anyways). Give yourself a real shot. Boxing or dancing could be your thing, but you’ll need to get past all the beginning bullshit first (the nerves, the frustration, the boredom) to even get a whiff of what it’s really about. This is true for almost everything. You’ll need to persevere long enough to find out if “this thing” truly is your thing. The results may be delayed, but eventually they’ll pay off.

Secondly, go back into your past and work on all the stuff you told yourself that you sucked at (like public speaking, math, mechanics, writing, running, etc). Do you really suck it or was it just a matter of circumstance? Honestly, it doesn’t matter. Go do that thing and become proficient at. Get coaching if you need to, take some classes, and work it on every day. Don’t let it hold you down anymore. The goal is not mastery as it simply is to become “decent”. If you can make it decent, you can take away the power it holds over you.  Then you can start using it to empower you.

Do the things you are afraid of

If you are afraid of going broke, go live on the streets for two days to experience homelessness. If you are afraid of public speaking because you don’t want to mess up, well, maybe you should plan on messing up. Get it out of the way! Free yourself by planning your fuck ups in life. Whatever your fear is, practice running towards it. Running away and creating distance will only cause your fears to grow. Victor Frankl refers to this as “Paradoxical Intention”. If your anxiety is growing, it’s because the distance is getting too wide. Close the gap. Turn off the TV, get off your phone, and go handle some snakes and spiders. Or visit that place that you told yourself was dangerous because that Buzzfeed article said it had really high crime rates. Things are rarely that scary when we see them up close and personal, and getting punched in the face doesn’t hurt nearly as much as we think it will. Rip the band-aid off and get it over with. 

Related, be aware of anything that makes you feel uneasy. It may not be a full grown fear yet, but this uneasiness (which may be insecurity in disguise) may be large enough to prevent you from taking care of your business. We can call this “resistance”. I don’t think you need to do physically risky things to put yourself on Death Ground, but if you experience resistance when I mention traditionally masculine activities like martial arts, hunting, operating a machine, and backwoods camping, then maybe that’s a sign. The same goes for feminine pursuits like acting, dancing, reading poetry, and creating art. Did you experience any resistance there? I did. Time to work on it.

Do the things that don’t interest you

Do you really have ADHD or have you simply trained yourself to respond to only what excites you? And do you need medication for it or do you simply need more meditation? Regardless of the answer, part of the solution will lie in learning how to embrace the boredom. I always laugh when someone says they don’t like reading. Of course you don’t, it’s hard. It’s like doing squats for your brain, but instead of physical pain it’s the pain of apathy. If you can persist, however, this pain will train your brain. Little by little. Eventually you’ll like it, or at least the rewards of it, because boring work almost always leads to sexy results.

Sometimes it’s not the actual boredom that stops us from doing stuff, but rather the assumption that something will be boring. I have never been to a monster truck rally, but I have an assumption of what it will be like. You do too. With this assumption, we decide where our “self” fits in with it all. You may tell yourself you are not a “monster truck person” because of a combination of factors, but you are just guessing. We must challenge these assumptions. Even if it does turn out to be boring like you assumed, remember, we can use this boredom as a tool for growth. Some of my best thoughts have come at a race track as a bored teenager. Not everything has to be super exciting nor does everything need to make sense or fit into a neat box labeled “Who I am”. Learn to go with the flow. 

In the wisdom of Fight Club, you are not your fucking khakis, bank account, or car that you drive. Realize that we all have created various identities and belief systems that may more-or-less be bullshit. Learn to question yourself like you do others. We are so quick to judge other people and rip apart their arguments but then we give ourselves a free pass. You’ll need to put yourself through the grinder so you can weed out all your dogma as well. Why do I think the way I do? Could I be wrong? And how can I test this? Get out, explore, and experience more. Get your nails done, then go to a monster truck rally. Go shoot guns, then go to a musical. Truth will not be found behind a screen.

Up until now we’ve discussed only how to prepare ourselves for living on Death Ground, but eventually we’ll need to apply it.   That time is now.  

5

Be Present

“Do not ruin today with mourning tomorrow.”

― Catherynne M. Valente

 

How far ahead are you looking?

Recently, I was listening to a Navy Seal discuss the type of people who survive Hell Week (which is a 108 hour phase of their training designed to mentally break candidates). The main difference in the successful candidates, he said, was less in physical ability and more in how they managed the time in their heads. He stated that those who were more “big picture” became overwhelmed by the immensity of it all and were the first to drop out. When you are getting beat down with burpees and pullups, letting your mind drift to the fact that you have 90 hours left on the clock is not an effective strategy. Conversely, those that who didn’t think about the totality of the event and were able to break their days up into manageable segments (“I’m just going to make it to lunch” or “I’m just going to run to this checkpoint and see how I am doing”), were the ones who were more likely to make it. They were able to stay present and focus only on what lay directly in front of them. This is what we must do if you want to take back our time management and accomplish the things that suck, that we are afraid of, and that bore us.

Life is just too much to look at it as a whole. When we do this, we either feel like we have all the time in the world to figure it out or in contrast, we may become overwhelmed at the thought of all the things we need to do. Even if you do manage to live to retirement age, your brain will sabotage you along the way (see Parkinson’s Law and all the other cognitive biases). You’ll fuck around way too much on stuff that doesn’t matter because you will have told yourself that you have time. So one, we need to add in constraints and deadlines. That is the essence of the Death Ground Strategy. Additionally, we’ll need to aim much higher than we currently are. Even if you are locked in and squared away, sabotage is still likely to creep in and mess with the best laid plans. Like Murphy’s Law states, if something can go wrong, it will (so plan on doing more than is required). Shooting for the moon is not enough, shoot for another galaxy. Assume shit will go wrong and temper your expectations beforehand. All you can control is your effort and attitude not what the universe places at your front door. Aside from this, here are a couple suggestions on how to win the day.

Figure it Out

If you had one year to live, what would you say “Yes” to and stop putting off?  What skills would you learn, where would you travel, who would you connect with, and what moments would you create? I hate when people say that “someday” they should do this thing or that “someday” we should get together.  No, you won’t – unless you figure it out. It’s either important or it’s not. If it’s important, write it all down, then figure out when this someday is going to take place. Figure out the year, the months, and the days. If you consistently wake up in the morning and you haven’t given thought beforehand what your purposeful tasks of the day are, that’s a problem. Turn off the distractions and figure it out. 

If it helps, give themes to specific time periods. For example, this last March was my writing month and I began every morning with writing. I had put off getting back into writing for such a long time and attempts of sprinkling writing days here and there did not work. I needed to do it every day and fully immerse myself in the process. The other months have similar themes with the whole intention being to help me figure it out. 

Do the “Scary” Things First

Whatever you have been putting off likely needs to go in the first half of your day. If it’s not a habit yet, it needs to go here.  You can do habits when you are dead tired, but non-habits will require ample amounts of willpower. Don’t waste this part of your day sharpening a sword that is already sharp or hammering out the minutia of life that doesn’t really matter. If you need to wake up 2 or 3 or 4 hours before work to get it in, do it. Then string together as many mornings like this as you can. We all have the time, it’s just you might also need to….

Get off your Phone

Phones are preventing us from doing the deep work that our soul requires. Do what you need to do here. Remove the apps, delete your browsers, put it one of those cages with a lock, blow it up with an 8 gauge, it doesn’t matter. Your phone and the bullshit associated with it – a social media algorithm created to confirm your beliefs and fuel your ego, a never-ending news cycle designed to get you emotional and upset, and easily acquired dopamine hits that are turning you into a crack head – is taking us out of the present moment. We have important work to do and arguing on Facebook isn’t it. Get off your phone and earn your dopamine by doing the stuff that actually matters to you.  Stop getting caught up in petty shit and gossip, wasting so much energy on the words of Politicians, Celebrities, and the various enemies you have created in your head. Instead, re-invest this energy back into your life. Why care what others say or do? Because you think you have time. You don’t. Fix the things you can fix then move on.

We were not designed to win this battle. Invariably, I’ll receive a rebuttal from someone saying that they “barely” use their phone or that they barely watch Netflix or barely play video games, and that they manage to do it all with no ill effects.  And I say if they have the restraint to only do a little cocaine, then more power to them. Not me. I abuse the hell out of everything.  If you are like me (and you know you are if you feel resistance with the idea of giving up any of your devices), then throw the phone in the washing machine and get on with it. This is what is means to place yourself on Death Ground.  I’ve tried to make this strategy as accessible as possible, but I cannot take away the difficulty of it. If you want to fight 3x harder, you’ll need to be more extreme and do the things that others won’t. This is the way.

Closing Thoughts

“Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.”

― Marcus Aurelius

 

To place yourself on Death Ground, you must believe you are going to die. The more you can harness this belief, the more power you can generate to be able to face all the obstacles that lie ahead. You don’t need to empty your bank account for some crazy scheme or burn all your bridges to place yourself on Death Ground, but you will need to mentally go back to this place of thought every day to reflect and meditate on your own mortality. This is the source of our strength. This is how we fight harder.  Once we are in this place, we can get to work on our purpose and accomplishing all those things we told ourselves we would do by now. It took a few funerals to get me to this place but hopefully that won’t be true for you. Act as if you and those closest to you have already died and now you have a second shot at life. What will you do?

About the Author

Author picture

In December of 2021, I had a good friend pass away. While on his way to the gym, his vehicle collided with a train at a crossing killing him, his wife, and their unborn child instantly.  It’s a real sad story and to say this impacted me is an understatement.  I drank for over 30 days straight afterwards.

In 2022, and in response to his death, a mutual friend created a Facebook group simply named, “Death Ground”. Our mission here was to get the most out of life. You could die at any moment so you might as well do all the things that you have on your bucket list, right? At the time, I had no idea what this meant besides stop being soft and just go harder. So I got sober, cleaned up my habits, and dabbled in some stuff that scared me. This book is a result of all the meditation and questions I asked during this time.

In 2023, I finally put myself on Death Ground. I started the year by doing a polar plunge in the nearby lake for 2 minutes in February. Then I traveled to Texas, Toronto, and 5 cities in Europe. I fixed my body and rucked 30 miles, then 42 miles, and eventually ran the hardest ultramarathon I could find. I learned how to bow hunt and then went on a 5 day backwoods hunting trip. I read 25 books and have since started writing the sequel to this. I visited friends and family as much as I could and I helped others launch their own projects. I became more of a leader at work and in life. In short, I stopped putting stuff off.

I originally wrote On Death Ground as a guide for myself. I had no idea what it meant so I put pen to paper and this is what I come up with. Is it perfect? No, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is remembering step #3 and just doing it. Leaning into your fears and dislikes, and persisting forward regardless. 

Levi Clampitt

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More Death Ground

Death Ground Strategy and Beyond

Knowledge is power so here’s a vetted book list to help you take this concept further. Now obviously, reading should happen concurrently with activity.  It is not a replacement for action nor is it a prerequisite.  If you treat books as a preparation tool, you will never stop preparing. So my advice is to read while doing that hard stuff you are supposed to do. 

 

 

Origins of the Death Ground Strategy
 

Robert Greene is easily my favorite author and any one of his books (The 48 Laws of Power, Mastery, The Art of Seduction) would be a great investment towards helping you understand yourself and others. You can preview his chapter on Death Ground Strategy here (as text) or here (as video). This video is also a fantastic breakdown of the Death Ground Strategy using popular films.

 

 
My Top 15 Death Ground Books 
 

These books aren’t directly about the Death Ground Strategy, but they will help you take it to the next level by way of thinking about your own mortality, learning how to influence yourself, and reminding you that doing hard things is necessary for your soul.

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